SA Health sends thousands of masks to closed MP offices
Tens of thousands of masks have been delivered to politicians’ offices to protect staff – but they’ve all already gone home.
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Hundreds of thousands of masks have been sent to the closed electorate offices of MPs who were unaware the delivery was on its way.
SA Health has admitted the mask delivery was an “administrative error”.
While South Australians scrambled to buy face masks yesterday, SA Health was organising to send multiple boxes of masks to offices that, even when open, only employ a handful of staff.
One electorate office received a whopping 9600 masks.
Given there are 47 lower house electorates across South Australia, and a combined 49 offices, if each was given 9600 masks, that would be more than 470,000 masks.
MPs contacted by The Advertiser said they had not asked for the masks and were unaware they had been delivered to their offices.
They said they would be keen to distribute them in the community, even though they were intended to be used by staff members.
An email sent yesterday to the office managers across the 49 offices from Mick Healy, the facilities management supervisor in the Department of Treasury and Finance said SA Health had “initiated the delivery of face masks and sanitiser’’.
“Electorate Services were not aware of this until this morning when advised by a couple of offices who had been contacted by a courier company,’’ Mr Healy said.
“The face masks and sanitiser are intended for staff use while at work.
“While the quantities being delivered may seem excessive for the number of staff we have in our offices I’ll ask that you hold on to whatever you’ve received while we’re awaiting directions on surplus items.”
SA Health said it was delivering masks to all government agencies.
“Due to an administrative error, masks were also delivered to some electorate offices.’’
Wearing a mask can help stop someone who has COVID-19 – and doesn’t know it – from passing it on.
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